Australia’s richest university has temporarily pulled the plug on plans for a new campus in the country’s largest urban renewal project, citing insufficient funds.
The University of Melbourne said it had made the “difficult decision” to “pause work” on construction of its engineering campus at Fishermans Bend near the Yarra River mouth.
Work was due to start this year to convert the 7.2 hectare site – a former car manufacturing hub – into a “world-class engineering and design campus for large, experimental research, hands-on learning and collaboration with industry”, according to the university.
Construction has now been deferred for at least five years. Chief operating officer Katerina Kapobassis blamed “a more constrained revenue environment driven by evolving regulations across the sector”.
In a statement, Kapobassis said “careful financial management” was “paramount” and the project would be “reassessed” as part of the development of the institution’s next 10-year strategy from 2030. “The university remains committed to the precinct,” she insisted. “This decision will allow us to better align with the timing of key government and industry investments.”
The university had net assets of over A$8.4 billion (?4.1 billion) and achieved a A$217 million surplus last year, according to the institution’s latest annual report. But these figures masked a A$99 million “operating deficit” once “discretionary” investment income and one-off gains from property deals had been disregarded.
Melbourne is also vulnerable to federal government restrictions on the number of international students, whose fees constituted 32 per cent of the top-ranking institution’s revenue last year. And an by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (Vago) found that the entire Fishermans Bend project – of which the university campus forms a small part – was behind schedule because of the “Covid-19 pandemic, reduced staffing and changes to government departments”.
“Agencies are not on track to deliver all projects and outcomes,” Vago reported in June. “Many key planning documents are in draft or yet to be completed six years after the framework was released.”
The Australian Financial Review that only remediation, site clearing and foundation work had been completed on the campus site, which had been in the university’s hands since 2018. It had originally been expected to accommodate at least 4,000 staff, students and industry partners by 2024, under a A$2 billion (?972 million) capital works programme.
By 2050, the dual-use site would boast 80,000 residents and 80,000 workers utilising facilities in advanced defence technologies, hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, robotics, autonomous systems and geotechnical testing.
A university spokesman said the proposed defence research would continue elsewhere.
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